Prove yourself!
Today as Church we celebrate the first Sunday of Lent and we enter consciously with Jesus into the desert. We take up the journey to wander for "forty days and forty nights" (a number recalling the experiences of Moses and Elijah, also the 40 years of Israel's testing in the desert after the Exodus).We turn our attention to Jesus and the battle He undertakes with Satan. Upon reflection, I come to the conclusion that the devil ultimately challenges Jesus in all the temptations to prove his identity. Prove yourself! Huddling in caves at night and fragile from a lack of sleep, Jesus was extremely hungry and soon noticed the countless flat, rounded stones littering the desert floor. One stone in particular resembled the loaves of bread baked by his mother in his Nazareth home. Satan noticed it too and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread." Satan's request for a miracle would seem a perfect way for Jesus to show that he was...